How-tos and tutorials

I know the focus is on the big user guides at the moment, but I'd like to
start a discussion about the smaller publications.

Currently, some "how-tos" and "tutorials" are provided as ODF/PDF (finished
items on the Publications wiki page, drafts on Wish List), while others are
formatted as wiki pages.

For ODF/PDF files, there is no indication on the Publications page or in
the filename to identify the version of LibreOffice targeted.

In addition, some tutorials area just links to the OpenOffice.org wiki (or
other sites), or to files that have been re-uploaded to the TDF wiki at
some point in the past.

Questions for discussion follow.

1. Is there currently a meaningful distinction between "how-to" and
"tutorial"? If not, I have a partially worked out proposal which I may post
here later.

2. Should existing files be renamed to reflect the LO version, the version
of the document, etc.? The user guides seem to have fairly consistent file
names (in particular recent versions), though I haven't yet come across any
info stipulating a format.

3. Is there a valid reason to host PDFs from OOo and other sites locally?
Or should they be replaced with links to the original page so that users
are automatically directed to the latest version?

4. Should old tutorials and how-tos be discarded if current user guides
essentially cover the topic? I can imagine a gray area where the user guide
is almost but not quite an adequate replacement, in which case the user
guide could be updated and then the tutorial discarded.

--Kenneth

2. Should existing files be renamed to reflect the LO version, the version of the document, etc.?

Documentation needs to instantly indicate which specific version of LibO
it was written for. It isn't uncommon to come across features that work
in the beta/pre-release version, but don't work in the released version,
and vice-versus.

3. Is there a valid reason to host PDFs from OOo and other sites locally?

Link-rot.

If the document is current enough to be listed as documentation, then
hosting it on the LibO site is usually the most reliable way of ensuring
that the documentation is available to the potential user.

4. Should old tutorials and how-tos be discarded if current user guides essentially cover the topic?

Archive, rather than discard the material.

I'd suggest archiving Tutorials, How-Tos, Documentation etc, by major
release number:
* OOo 1.x;
* OOo 2.x;
* OOo 3.x;
* LibO 3.x;
* LibO 4.x;
* LibO 5.x;
* LibO 6.x;

I'm listing OOo, specifically because there are a couple of
How-Tos/Tutorials/Documentation for them, which, AFAICT, has not yet
been updated.

jonathon

Sorry for the delayed response. Thanks for your answers. I think I agree
with all of this.

I may tackle organization of existing material of this sort soon.

My thoughts on #1 are still on the to-do list. Perhaps someone else will
speak up in the meantime.

--Kenneth

Tom,

This is of course a great thing, but we already have a link to that website
on the wiki.

Also, "here are some tutorials" is not really related to the discussion in
this thread (apologies for the overly broad subject line). Better to start
a new one in such cases, I think.

--Kenneth